Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
This was the first time that Lu Zhou saw something so strange. Someone was giving him money and he had to take it.
Okay, that was slightly exaggerated, but that was the jist of it.
According to the policy by the Ministry of Education, they could give an interest-free loan to university students. The university would also match the loan with a 1:1 ratio.
For example, if Lu Zhou received a 100,000 yuan loan, according to the policy, the university would contribute 50,000 yuan while the Ministry of Education would contribute 50,000 yuan. The money would be interest-free for a year and after that, it would only have a small interest fee. The rate of the interest fee was much lower than bank loans. In fact, it was even lower than the inflation rate!
Of course, this did not mean that Lu Zhou could only borrow 100,000 yuan.
The school would determine the amount of the loan based on the prototypes of his project and application.
The money would not go into his personal bank account. Instead, it would go directly into the company account. Each expense was recorded and so, he could not spend it recklessly. He could only use that account to pay for business expenses until the loan was paid off.
It was a huge help to Lu Zhou. By running the app, he was burning through his own money. At the rate his bank account was decreasing, he could not even tell if he could survive until the end of the year.
Registering a bank account for a company was easy. Who would not want an interest-free loan!
The problem was that both the computer science and mathematics department wanted to fund the project.
The mathematics department claimed that their quota had nowhere else to be used and they offered to loan 500,000 yuan. If needed, they could even give more. There were no other projects that they were interested in anyway.
The computer science department had a lot of projects and they were running on available quota. They could at most give 200,000 yuan. However, they had talented people. There was no problem from any single project that the professors could not solve. They were all professors that did consultation work for big companies.
Indeed, it was difficult to decide.
Lu Zhou was leaning towards the latter as he would not have to spend as many general points. Besides, not everything could be bought with money. However, the dean of mathematics was right in front of him and he could not blatantly embarrass him. Otherwise, he would have a difficult time staying in the mathematics department.
What if the two departments collaborated…
Lu Zhou thought that in addition to being honest and handsome, his biggest strength was being self-aware. Even though he was a genius, he could not bend the rules.
At least not yet.
If the two departments actually collaborated, they definitely would not listen to Lu Zhou’s suggestions. They would just take the lead, like in the mathematical modeling competition.
The two deans didn’t mention collaborating. It must mean that it would be difficult to do!
Lu Zhou analyzed this logically. He guessed that this was not only about pride but it contained actual value. If one of the departments incubated a successful project, then they would feel very prideful during the annual meeting.
“Dean Zhang, I’m sorry,” said Lu Zhou apologetically. With a sincere voice, he said, “The code for Campus Train is already written and I can single-handedly manage the updates. Dean Lu is offering what I need.”
Although he rejected Dean Zhang, he still tried to soften the blow as much as possible.
However, it seemed like Lu Zhou was over-thinking as Dean Zhang did not seem to care that much. He was just disappointed.
“Oh, I understand. I see… Oh yeah, if you’ve any computer science questions, feel free to ask me.”
But don’t think that the computer science department will allocate a professor as your advisor. Everyone is busy and no one has that much free time. It would take the head of the mathematical department himself to request for help if you want help from us.
Of course, no one is stopping you from finding a professor or graduate student for help.
“Thank you!” said Lu Zhou solemnly.
“I didn’t even help you, no need to thank me! Oh yeah, pay attention to the mathematical modeling competition. If you don’t get the first prize, then don’t come to find me. I don’t know you!” said Dean Zhang with a serious tone. He then waved his hand, stood up, and said, “I’m busy, I have to go.”
“Take it easy,” said Dean Lu. With a beaming smile, he said, “I won’t send you out.”
“Ha, look at how happy you are.”
The pair had a pretty good private relationship and they would often joke around.
Lu Zhou observed secretly as he was thinking in his heart.
Zhang Zhongjie left and Dean Lu paused for a moment before saying, “Oh yeah, Lu Zhou, I have an application form here. Take it back, fill it out, and bring it back to my office tomorrow.”
“Okay!”
Dean Lu was satisfied with Lu Zhou’s enthusiasm. He nodded and reminded Lu Zhou.
“Oh yeah, even though this project is a good idea, don’t forget about your real job.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve already finished learning the second and third year courses. You can test me right now.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about your studies. Who said I was talking about that?” said Dean Lu as he laughed. He then said jokingly, “I don’t care about anything else. I just have one rule. You better publish one thesis in the core journal this year. If I don’t see your thesis, I’ll take away your scholarship.”
Lu Zhou: “…”
Even though he knew Dean Lu was doing this for his good, Lu Zhou still wanted to insult him!
…
The 500,000 yuan loan solved Lu Zhou’s urgent problem. At least he did not have to use his living expenses to pay for this expensive project.
At first, he had not expected that there would be so many users. He was happy with ten thousand users and he had not expected his app to have such a high reputation amongst college students.
Of course, this meant that he had to give up on another section of the demographic. As the name [Campus Train] was not very attractive to non-college students, many of the features were useless to the general public.
So far, the total number of downloads for [Campus Train] had reached 200,000 with a total of 310,000 tickets bought successfully.
It was the peak time for students to return to school and thus, it was also peak usage time.
The company was registered and it took three days to get all the formalities together. The money had entered into his account and Lu Zhou immediately paid for the server upgrade.
If he wanted to keep the users, he had to keep the users happy. The app should not lag. The users would be annoyed if they refreshed the page and still could not get a ticket. In that case, they might jump to another app.
Lu Zhou opened the developer panel and looked at the increasing number of downloads.
In a few days, the Android app store would release their recommendation for free apps. This would bring a new wave of users to his app. After that, the back-to-school period would end around 10th September. By then, he would know how many stable active users there are.
“The next step is to continue the updates and maintenance, I have money to hire two programmers so this shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lu Zhou stretched and continued to stare at the screen. Suddenly, he saw an unread notification where it said there were many bug reports.
This was a big problem and he had to take it seriously.
Lu Zhou was alert. He immediately sat up straight and expanded the notification.
“Bug reports… Why are there so many bug reports? Let me look at this.”
[Master can you look at my thesis? My WeChat is…]
[Please help to write my thesis, WeChat is…]
[The Weibo lucky draw was shady, I don’t care, it was rigged.]
Lu Zhou: “…”
F*ck sake!
Why did you chase me all the way here? What a much of sinister people!